Padawan Naberrie
by Izzy
Summary: Four interludes from Padmé's apprenticeship after "Growing Up in the Jedi Temple."
1. With Her Master's Blade

Her Master was letting her use his new lightsaber.

She was pretty sure he'd wanted to make a new lightsaber since their encounter with the Zabrak Sith Lord. And it had taken him over a year, but he'd done it. She'd watched him make it, stared in fascination at the purple crystal, and then he'd given her a second purple crystal. For her thirteenth nameday, he'd said, as it had been a week away at that time. "But you will not use it yet. Not for many years. If at all."

She had the feeling she never would use it. That she was keeping it for someone else. Some Padawan she herself might train, perhaps.

"Standing in the opening form with lightsaber lit."

Such a deep voice. From the first time she'd heard it, she'd wondered if it could be used in hypnosis. Now she knew it could. She stood completely still, not a molecule out of place, even though the lightsaber felt too heavy in her right hand.

"Fourth Level Mid-Air."

For brief moment she wondered what was the purpose of this exercise, but that was not something she should ask. He would tell her if she needed to know.

Her body was too heavy, a bloated, unruly thing which she struggled to harness. Yet she somehow lifted it, raising her knees to launch into the kata.

Feel the Force flowing through her. She was never sure what she felt was the Force, or her own blood, which was always too loud, especially around her Master.

Blood she tried to calm, as her mind was already calmed, through half the kata. Calmed, and almost clear, the thrum of _something_ propelling itself through her drawn and stretched body the only distraction. Certainly she could not give in to the temptation to draw strength from the pounding of her heart. What she felt had deep enough a hold on her already; she could never encourage it.

She was holding his lightsaber in front of her, and for a moment the purple blade cut between his eyes, and her concentration was nearly broken by the intensity of his stare. Half a year ago it would have been. But there she had made herself better, and she kept going, forced herself to focus on moving the blade behind her, her legs back under her, preparing for the roll from which she would land. She allowed herself no shame until it was done, until she was standing with her arms and legs again spread, in the exact position in which she had started, awaiting her Master's judgement.

"Perfectly done," she heard him murmur, and pride and disbelief warred within her. And yet he still walked up to her around, just looking at her, as if trying to figure out what was wrong. She kept her eyes focused on the wall in front of her, but it did little good. She could feel his presence in her bones, his attention on her. She felt his presence now more than she felt her own, almost as if he was immolating her, and that thought somehow brought the flush up to her cheeks. She didn't know what it meant, whether it was good or bad, that she almost wanted him to.

She both dreaded and longed to know what he was thinking, or for him to touch her. Though what he would know from touching her he had to know already. He could read her with no effort; had done so from two months after he'd taken her as his Padawan. He had to know of her weakness. And he had to realize it was not the weakness of a normal thirteen-year-old, which might be excused. Normal thirteen-year-old humans, even ones trained here in the Jedi Temple, didn't usually have the clarity and maturity of emotion she did, and physically she was more mature-that he had to know, as a matter of medical fact.

She didn't know why he still kept her, in the face of a such a failure.

But he placed his hand over hers, gently taking a hold of his lightsaber, and said her name questioningly: "Padmé?" And his hand was so strong, and she knew he could break her, but never would, at least not in that way. And the heat travelled through her skin, set her chest on fire. And she _wanted_ , and there was no way to hide that from him.

"It is not that which concerns me," he said, almost as if he was reading her mind. Maybe he was. "No, there is something else besides that which is wrong, and I cannot tell what."


	2. A Riverbank on Riast

The current society on Riast separated everyone into age groups, and Padmé Naberrie, it seemed, was several months too young. Master Windu had done his best, pointing out that Naboo subspecial biology probably qualified her to be viewed as 16 years standard instead of her actual 15, but it hadn't worked. The "almost-adults" as the Riastion word for them more or less translated, had finished their intensive training and would come of age together when the new regime came in, though the vast changes to society that would take place with it might make the age-groups obsolete. So Padmé was left with not much to do except hope that her Master managed to keep everyone from arguing and the reorganization proceeded as quickly as something of its scale could reasonably be expected to, which still wasn't very quickly at all.

She was expected to socialize properly with her peers, so she did, and she genuinely enjoyed it. Everyone she talked with was intelligent and very friendly. They had a freshness and a wide-eyed hope about them that you saw some of in Initiates in the Jedi Temple, though once they went out into the galaxy beside their Masters it faded quickly.

One of them, named Neri'top'worza'ita'aya, and known to her friends as Neri, reminded Padmé very strongly of her old friend Sara Tor'nuit. The two of them spent a lot of time together. They reviewed the specifics for Neri's chosen field of study, then some of Padmé's lessons, with the young Padawan teaching Neri a few meditation techniques. They played games as well, both indoor and outdoor, and Neri even taught Padmé how to catch the planet's clams out of the river near the capital city.

They caught and ate quite a few of them one afternoon, after which they had no appetite for dinner, so, as was the custom, they lay on the riverbank as Riast's sun began to set. Padmé felt very slightly loose; she wondered if the clam meat might have an influence on the hormones; she didn't think it was psycoactive, but she didn't feel quite like she would have without eating it.

"Sun's an amazing thing, you know," Neri said, as they stared up into the purples and deep blues that filled the sky during the Riastion sunset. "None of us would be here without it."

"Nor would the planet," Padmé agreed. "At least according to most scientific theories."

An uncharacteristic pause from Neri. "Yeah," she said, "I guess you're right."

"Did you never think about it that way?" That she might not have was something that ought to have occurred to Padmé, since she knew it was rare for almost-adults to go off planet, but it hadn't.

"No, I guess not. The planet's always been...well, the planet. Though you know, I remember now how you looked at Shrin when he talked about 'the outside world.' That would really be more like the 'outside worlds,' wouldn't it?"

"That is one way of putting it, yes." Though it wasn't the way Padmé would have put it.

Which maybe Neri sensed, because she next said defensively, "We're not that unalike, you know. Surely there was a time when you thought of Coruscant's sun as _the_ sun. I know Jedi Initiates are penned up in the Temple after they're four or so, and you were an Initiate until you were twelve, right?"

"Yes, but first, you're assuming we don't remember our early years. In my experience that's just not true. Don't you remember the story I told you about my friend Anakin's memory, how he remembered me singing to him when he was only a few months old?"

"Of course! It's too sweet to forget, isn't it? But do you really remember everything like that?"

"Everyone I've talked to remembers almost everything by the time they're three. Anakin can go into a lot of detail about both Kamparas and Ossus; he was taken to both planets at that age."

It was a little strange, Padmé thought, that even though she had told the story about Anakin in the crèche, she had gone into so little detail about her own past with Neri that the other girl didn't know that she hadn't been in the Temple when she'd been four. But that was a part of her life that she truly was trying to forget completely. It wasn't as easy to forget about as she'd thought it would be at thirteen.

Neri was a perceptive girl, though. "You talk as if your own experience was different."

"I came to the Jedi Temple when I was five years old, and quickly going on six. I was nearly too old, and when you consider my biology, I'm still a little surprised they accepted me. To me, Centrax was never _the_ sun; it was a new sun. My sun's was Naboo's sun. That's a lot more like your own than Centrax; Centrax is much weaker. There's a game amoung Jedi Initiates at trying to look at directly. You shouldn't do it, though; it still damages your eyes."

Neri laughed, and said, "There's a game among the youngest here of doing the same thing! We try to stop it, of course, but…in the end, you just hope they all come out all right. They usually do."

"Do you remember Naboo well?" she asked as the evening started to grow cooler. Padmé usually didn't react to minor temperature fluctuations, but now she shivered.

"I think I remember my childhood better than I would if I'd lived my entire life on Naboo, if that makes sense." It was the first time she had admitted it to anyone, even herself. "Especially because I clung to those memories in the years immediately afterwards. Like when I was three, and my grandmother visited our home in the mountains. She wrapped me up in bright cloth one morning and carried me up the mountain while she sang and spoke to me. Same lullaby my mother used to sing to me and my sister. I can still remember the sunlight on the rocks. And of course I did think of it as _the_ sun then. I didn't even know at that point that there _were_ other suns, that all those bright points of light in the sky at night had anything in common with the sun. I remembered that two years later when I came to Coruscant, and saw Centrax's sunlight illuminating metal and glass-both of which I thought looked terrible, because I'd been growing up on so different a planet from Coruscant, and it was a real shock to me to realize the sun I'd thought of as being the only one of its kind, even after I'd been told otherwise, was nothing but one pinprick of light in a vast galaxy, in an infinite universe-and how big that is, I don't even want to think about.

Though that's arrogance. We here in the Republic think we're so great because we've colonized almost a whole galaxy, an incomprehensible amount of space for anyone living before the hyperdrive was developed, but what is our galaxy in the end? Just another speck in the cosmos, and most of the cosmos we'll never know anything about. We chart other galaxies like our ancestors charted other stars-other suns-but there are so many we'll never develop the technology to so much as detect. An infinite amount of them, in theory."

She shivered again. Even Jedi had trouble facing things on this scale. Well, maybe Master Yoda could manage it without wanting to flinch, but probably noone else could, not even Master Windu. In theory, they might have access to everything in the universe through the Force, but if that were true, then Padmé truly believed they literally lacked the ability to comprehend all they would be connecting to.

She regretted having gone off on the tangent, though, when she sensed Neri's distress. Instinctively she reached out to comfort, and though Neri continued the stare at the sky, Padmé saw the dazed fear on her face.

"It's all right," she said. "You don't need to deal with it all at once." When Neri's mood didn't grown any better, Padmé carefully pulled her close and whispered soothingly in her ear, "You shouldn't think of yourself as small and insignificant. If you do that, you will be. But if you don't, well, who really has the authority to measure the importance of things in the universe, to dismiss anyone as unimportant?" She was cradling her like a babe now. Not before this had she felt so much older than this girl.

"I'm frightened," she whispered to Padmé. "They don't tell us what we're going to do with ourselves before we come of age-I hope that changes with the reorganization going on right now, it's wrong to do that-but it's been hinted to me I'm going to become part of the new government. I can't think the way I have anymore, and I know it. Reorganizations only happen every five hundred years, you know. I'd be part of the group of people who will decide what our world's going to be like for that long. They're making a lot of the decisions now, but not all of them. They can't make all of them now; things just don't work that way. I don't know if I can do this.

You're kinder than your Master, you know," she mumbled on when her trembling had eased. "Did you know I met him? I don't know if I mentioned it. I can't see him doing this. Maybe when Jedi reach a certain age, they don't anymore?"

Actually, Padmé thought someone like Master Qui-Gon could manage this much better than her. And he might have told Neri the secret she arguably ought to know, but that Padmé, true to her Master's orders, would keep to herself. Her friend hadn't mentioned it, but Padmé had known that her Master had met with her, because he'd told her about it, and why.

Neri'top'worza'ita'aya had no idea of her own importance. She was no doubt picturing herself in some minor governmental post, spending her life handling her superiors' decisions. But on learning of Padmé's particular friendship with her, Master Windu had made some inquiries, and learned that her instructors and the other adults around her had singled her out to train into Riast's highest positions, even as the nature and duties of those positions were still being worked out. The Riaston almost-adult who trembled in Padmé's embrace might meet her again some day as her planet's leader. Probably would, because their friendship would result in advantages for Padmé here, and the Jedi Council would thus send her whenever Riast had need of a Jedi.

Padmé herself could see her friend when she was older, meeting with the authorities of the Republic and her neighboring planets, learned and confident, with so much more comprehension of the galaxy the Riaston population lived in than so many of the planet's inhabitants. Someday the pain her mind was experiencing in having to expand would be shrugged off as just another memory of her childhood.

But she would be grateful to Padmé for the comfort she was providing now, and the affection between them would be of value to them both, for personal as well as for practical reasons. She had long thought that Master Windu, for all he openly distrusted Master Qui-Gon's lack of detachment from those he met, secretly envied him. Now, feeling this connection with this girl develop, dwelling on the implications of the friendship she had formed without even thinking about it, Padmé Naberrie was starting to understand that Master Qui-Gon had abilities and advantages that Master Windu didn't have.

 _But she did._

Neri had stilled, then shifted, and was staring at the sky again, though she made no move to break away from Padmé. But Padmé herself was now struck equally hard, by a notion as frightening as the extensiveness of the universe outside Riast was to Neri. That she was now capable of doing things that her Master _would never be able to do_...though she might even teach him how to do part of it. The Padawan taught the Master as much as the Master taught the Padawan, after all. She'd always ignored that until now. Here she was trying to be just like him. She would need to do some reevaluations when she had time.

"Padmé? Are you okay?" Neri never failed to notice the state of the people around her.

"I'll be all right," Padmé whispered, making no attempt to conceal how she was feeling; it was relieving that she didn't have to, when so usually she did. "We'll both be all right."

"Both of us...it's nice, you know," Neri mused, "to know some of you Jedi do have feelings like us after all." She dissolved into giggles. So did Padmé.


	3. Shot of Hormones

Padmé had been obliged to leave her Jedi tunics and cloak in the quarters given to her and her Master, and her belt kit along with it, and she had not been given the opportunity to access it at all after she had accepted the priest's offer. Which, in retrospect, showed an immediate bad attitude towards and mistreatment of women on this planet, even if it was a fertility rite.

So when she left the priest with him back at his alter, praying for something, she deliberately hadn't paid attention to what, she all but ran back to her quarters. She didn't feel anything yet, except the temptation to not feel anything ever about what had just happened, and her only thought was on the next course of action, the first response to the current situation.

Most female Jedi, Padmé Naberrie included, carried two forms of contraception among all the other components of their belt kits. The first was a serum carried by most Jedi of any sex, that worked on most species with minimal side-effects, but needed to be taken before intercourse. So when Padmé sat down in her quarters and opened her kit, she instead drew out her two doses of levonorgestrel. The side-effects of this hormone dose could be very unpleasant, but she might be lucky and not suffer them, and it would prevent her from getting pregnant. She was lucky already, that she was a species for which the conception process took some time; that wasn't true of all species.

The levonorgestrel was supposed to be carried around in case of rape. Not that the majority of Jedi females imagined they could ever be overpowered. If the priest had tried that with Padmé, she could have had him subdued within moments. There was always the possibility, of course, of being overpowered by sheer numbers, but Padmé had before this always thought of the hormone doses as something she kept for the same reason Master Windu and some other male Jedi did, for when they were coming to the aid of a civilian female. She knew he'd used his supply in such a capacity more than enough times.

She took the loaded hypospray into the 'fresher, but even with the aid of the mirror she had trouble zeroing in on her vein. That was an anomaly; normally she could inject herself precisely and without needing to see what she was doing.

But she got herself injected, and then was left standing in the 'fresher with no required actions to take, and several different urges: to meditate, to take a shower, to strip down and examine her body as if that might provide her with some clarity, to suppress this all and rejoin Master Windu where he was talking with the Premier's assistants, or to march in on them and tell them just what she thought of their "deflowering" ritual.

Whatever else, she decided, she didn't want to wear this ceremonial gown anymore. She took it off and hung it on a convenient hook near the door. She wondered if the priest had noticed the lack of blood on it. She suddenly feared that he thought she'd lied to him about being a virgin. But there were athletic females on this planet, so surely he'd had to realize that there wasn't always blood the first time.

Retrieving her clothes, she fastened her cloak around her neck, so if Master Windu came in she could throw it over herself quickly. Even this made her nervous, and that was another anamoly; now the last of her old infatuation with him was years behind her they'd reached the point that neither reacted much to seeing the other naked.

Instead of taking the normal meditative position on her knees, Padmé got down with her thighs spread, her knees bent, and her feet pressing against each other. Strange how exposed she felt, when from this angle she still had trouble seeing her genitals when she looked down.

She reached down and ran a finger between her labia. The feeling of soreness was beginning to fade, taken care of by her ability to quickly heal. When she pressed down on her clitoris, the sensation felt no different. Well, why should it? Whatever contact that particular part of her genitals had had with the priest's body was incidental. He hadn't even looked down there.

And with that thought came the realization she was looking in the wrong place. The problem did not lay with her body, but how the priest had reacted to it.

She had not been exposed to most of it. She had gone to the priest with an open heart and mind, only to sense in him a strong contempt for her that he'd hidden before that. The only thing that had prevented her from calling him on it and possibly fleeing was confusion as to _why_. She'd stayed because she'd wanted to understand, she'd lain there through his ritualistic words and let him get on top of her and in her, when even with no hymen she'd barely been lubricated enough for it not to hurt anyway.

And he'd wanted it to hurt for her. There had been no mistaking that desire in his mind. From what she could tell he'd felt it proper that a young girl's first time be painful, and _he'd liked it that way._

When after that she'd sensed his desire to dominate and possess, Padmé had had enough. In retrospect, she now wished she'd pushed him off of her, but in the stress of the moment, she had instead just raised her shields to full strength, closed her eyes, and absorbed herself into a meditation that would cut her off from the outside universe. He'd only noticed what she was doing afterwards when he'd looked angry and blathered something nonsensical about her not getting the full effect of the ritual.

"I am sorry," she'd replied, and wouldn't Master Windu have been proud to hear her regal tone of voice, "but that held little significance for me after all. I am not this crude matter." Because she wasn't.

She might not be, but as she mentally recoiled from the memory of her all too close contact with the foulness in his mind, she suddenly thought of how often the man did this, and of all the girls he left hurting and ashamed for a wrong he had done, not them, having lost something the planet's society had raised them to value, and they could never get back, no matter how desperately their peace of mind depended on it.

Padmé hastily pulled herself up onto her knees, as if that might make it easier to release her soul-eating rage.

She was still struggling when Master Windu came in. "Padmé?" he heard her ask, his concern unusually evident. "I sensed it did not go well."

"It did not," she answered, "but I will be all right. Which may be more than can be said for the young women of this planet."

"I sense far too much anger in you," he observed, which just made Padmé angrier.

"How can you let this happen?" she demanded, rising to her feet and trying to stare him down. "I can tell now you knew what I would be in for, but at least I can handle it. At least I had the levonorgestrel and the knowledge to use it as well. At least I know better than to turn that man's misogyny inward onto myself. It took the education of the Temple to teach me that. Did you know there are still legal limits to abortion on this planet? As if this priest's victims hadn't endured enough already. We came to this planet in order to put a stop to the difficulties here, but now I see all this pain below the surface that we're ignoring completely, and why?"

"What would you do to stop it?" Master Windu asked, as calm as ever.

That made Padmé pause. Most of the courses of action that came to her mind weren't practical.

"Is this like slavery?" she asked. "A problem the Jedi don't have the resources to fix?"

"That is one way to think of it."

When Master Windu talked like that to Padmé, he usually was trying to get her to figure something out. So she thought some more, letting go of the worst of her rage, and mused out loud, "I know we Jedi aren't supposed to interfere in cultural matters, but to me, that honestly doesn't seem like enough of an excuse in this case."

"You may not be looking at this situation clearly. Look to the Force directly for an answer."

Soothed by her Master's gentle presence, Padmé released the remainder of her anger and centered her mind on the Force. It told her what she already knew, and another thing she hadn't quite seen, that nearly caused her to give herself over to rage again.

"It's not just this planet," she said. "This scenario repeats itself on planet after planet, all over the galaxy. It even did so on Coruscant, once in the distant past. The effects still linger there now, centuries and centuries after the worst of it is over. I always felt that there was deep pain all around me, but too much of it is pain inflicted on females, for no other reason but that they are female. Even on Coruscant."

One look at her Master's astonished face and she knew this was not the response he had been expecting. But he did not contradict her.

"I'm not your first female Padawan," Padmé couldn't help pointing out. "Did Depa never notice this?"

"If she did, she never mentioned it. I do not think she quite ever endured a situation like your current one. Many don't; most people in the galaxy see our lightsabers before all else; to them we might as well have no sex."

"That is not an excuse. I wish I had seen this before myself. Do you mean to tell me, Master, that in all your years...I've been with you to the planets where the females are all but invisible, kept confined to their houses, or worse. I've seen you give initial treatment to rape victims and helped you do so. We've read of the laws and restrictions..."

"It is a pattern one cannot escape entirely," Master Windu said, and he spoke very slowly, which was the closest he ever came to showing uncertainty of what he was saying. "But you are right. When the way the galaxy operates seems so deeply set that change seems impossible, it is all too easy just not to look."

"We are Jedi, Master," Padmé said to him. "It is our duty to fight against what is unjust as much as we can." She was all but openly challenging him now, but she felt driven to it, by his words, by what she had just sensed in the Force, and by the ugliness of the priest's thoughts still clinging to her mind. She knew she was right.

And he knew it too. He bowed his head and said, "There still is not much we can do here. Speaking out would do more harm than good."

"I know, Master." Padmé bowed her head in turn, sensing that the mutual lesson was over. "But the next girl who is 'deflowered' by one of the high priests while we're here should be quietly given your hormone doses. A pitifully small thing, but at least we can do that."

"We shall do it. But now you must dress; we are expected at lastmeal. They may ask you questions there; are you ready to answer them?"

"I can answer without giving offense, I think." Though it would not be easy.


	4. The Part to Be Played

For many years, relations between Naboo and the Trade Federation had been tense. Blockades, embargos, the threat of invasion once or twice. Padmé Naberrie and her Master had been called in more than once to protect Naboo's senator when she thought one of the Trade Federation's representatives on Coruscant was planning to kill her. Oddly enough, her predecessor, the current Chancellor, failed utterly to share her paranoia. Which of them was mistaken in their beliefs was genuinely uncertain.

Nor were they the first pair of Jedi sent in to attempt to diffuse the situation when it grew unusually fraught. But they were, it was supposed, walking into a more dangerous situation than most, which was perhaps why Master Windu and his eighteen-year-old padawan had been selected for the mission in the first place.

"Queen Votorina has claimed to be present," Master Windu noted as they waited to dock at the Trade Federation vessel which headed the latest blockade. "And I believe she is, though likely not as herself."

"Won't she who acts as the Queen be someone to be reckoned with in her own right? Doesn't she use her Force-sensitive handmaiden as a decoy when dealing with Jedi?" A girl who was completely untrained, of course, because her parents had refused to give her up, but apparently unnervingly perceptive.

"She has in the past, but I suspect now that they know we have identified her, she won't even be there. Naboo handmaidens depend on anonymity. It took me a great deal of trouble to find the information I gave you on Sabé Andierre, her head handmaiden and our most likely decoy."

Information on Andierre, and twelve other names, with notes on which ones came from more famous families, the only easily accessible information on the girls, and which four of them were likely to be present. Andierre was a year older than the Queen, who was a year older than Padmé; all thirteen handmaidens were within ten years of the Queen's age. They were a group supposedly politically inactive, making a splendid show of pomp and ceremony around their mistress, but in fact capable of far more than that, and dangerous to underestimate. It was Padmé's task to keep an eye on them at the upcoming negotiations.

They had started the talks already when the two Jedi got to the conference chamber. At least defining "talks" loosely. Viceroy Nute Gunray was ranting at Queen Votorina/Sabé Andierre, who was having trouble getting a word in. According to what Padmé had read, Andierre probably had a lot of experience posing as the Queen, but not as posing as her in an diplomatic situation where she was required to do this kind of talking. Her observations made Padmé certain of this, and that it was indeed her, even before Master Windu said, "I see you started without us," in a clear commanding voice that silenced Gunray instantly.

"He was quite eager to speak, Master Jedi," replied Andierre. As she and her Master sat, Padmé's eyes traveled to the five handmaidens with her to observe their reactions. Nothing that stood out so far. No Force sensitivity either; her Master had been right.

"Yes, I am. Naboo has been behaving atrociously in response to our perfectly legal blockade!" Gunray said to them, slamming his fists on the table for emphasis. The handmaidens all had identical looks of outrage.

"How so?" Andierre and Master Windu asked it together.

"Well, I don't think you two are even necessary to this situation!" He shook his finger at the two Jedi. "Queen Votorina and myself are perfectly capable of coming to a mutual agreement on our own. And yet she insists on calling you in to bully me."

"We were sent with the overwhelming approval of the Senate," Master Windu reminded him.

"And if you are seeking peaceful agreement," Andierre added, successfully turning her voice icy cold, though Padmé could detect at least some of her alarm, "why do I hear battle droids marching right outside this room?"

Neimoidians tended not to give much away in their facial expressions, but Gunray's dismayed reaction revealed enough. Padmé was impressed with the handmaiden; she herself hadn't thought anything of the sound of metallic footsteps outside.

Still, watching the handmaidens now, she was very quickly able to tell which one was Queen Votorina. They were muting their reactions fairly well, and were helped by the concealing clothes they wore, but they were subtly moving in preparation to protect both Andierre and the young woman sitting closest to her.

"Padmé, up!" Without thinking, Padmé obediently leapt for her chair, just before it exploded, as did the likewise newly-empty chair next to her. Another moment and Master Windu had Gunray struggling in his powerful hold, the tip of his lightsaber blade at his throat. "Viceroy Gunray, you are hearby under arrest, for attempted murder."

" _Attempted_ murder?" retorted Gunray, just before the doors to the conference room opened and battle droids came in with guns blazing. "If you are attempting to arrest me without proper authority, well, I am sure, of course, that I can convince the Senate I was forced to act in self-defense."

"Behind me!" Padmé ordered. Lightsaber ignited, she threw herself in front of the young women, all of whom had blaster pistols out, Andierre included. Master Windu released Gunray and also took position as the latter laughed. "How do you expect to get out of here? How will you save the Queen? Do you even know which one of them the Queen is?"

Padmé felt the dismay behind her, but replied coolly, "I do know, but you won't get me to tell you."

"I don't need to!" Gunray crowed back. "I only need to defend myself against all of them, and while it is clear you won't let me go while any of you still live, there are a hundred battle droids out there!"

Normally, Padmé thought, they might have managed that. Not without some trouble obviously, and that many droids perhaps would have subdued many a lesser Jedi, but Master Windu was very powerful, and thanks to his training, she wasn't so easy to defeat herself. But getting the Queen and her handmaidens to safety seemed an impossible situation, even if they didn't blow up their ship, which more likely than not they would do.

Then Padmé saw her Master's eyes travel to the ventilation shaft, made large because of certain Neimoidian breathing irregularities, and she knew what they were going to try.

The girls were all standing already; as the battle droids swarmed in, she took hold of the nearest and began pushing them as a group towards the wall, deflecting blaster bolts with her lightsaber as she moved. Master Windu had flown into action, taking out droids so quickly he seemed a blur even to Padmé. She turned back towards the shaft, and with one swipe of her lightsaber had it open. "Crawl in." And she pressed the Queen down, giving away who she was, but in a minute or so that wouldn't matter anyway.

"No!" Gunray ran towards them, clumsy firing, but Padmé easily deflected his own bolts back onto his arms and legs, causing him to collapse. But as she did, one blaster shot hit one of the handmaidens, who fell dead, the only cry being one of "Saché!" from one of the other ones, the youngest, Padme thought.

One of the handmaidens was following her Queen into the shaft while Andierre fired at the droids, but the young girl who had cried out advanced forward, furiously releasing such a reckless volley of shots that Padmé was relieved when she didn't hit Master Windu. She seized her by the arm. "Revenge does no good. Follow your Queen into the shaft."

The girl looked like she was going to protest, but Andierre too took her arm, and said, "She's right, Yané. Go." The last of the four handmaidens helped Yané into the shaft and followed herself, while Master Windu was forced back towards them.

Hoping he was letting himself be forced back for his own purposes, Padmé directed Andierre into the shaft with a firm look. She then crawled in herself, her legs scrambling over Andierre's fancy robes, still deflecting bolts as best she could.

Finally Master Windu squeezed himself in after her, then used the Force to break off the back of one of the conference chairs and seal the opening, submerging them into darkness. "That should hold them long enough for us to lose them."

"What about the Viceroy?" Padmé asked.

"We will report this deed to the Senate. I fear the Trade Federation will launch an invasion, if they are not already doing so right now. You will have to come to Coruscant with us, Your Highness."

"Flee my planet as it is invaded?" they heard the Queen's horrified voice ask.

"You may need to press charges against the Viceroy and the Federation in person. He has avoided facing charges on that technicality before."

Padmé could sense the Queen was still unhappy, and said, "Your Highness, I can guess at what you are feeling at the idea of running. And I myself understand the loyalty and love of Naboo, though I spent only the first five years of my life here. But if you are to stop the Trade Federation, you must do this."

"We have no time to argue," Master Windu declared, and she could feel his irritation at her. "We won't get our own transport off the control ship intact; they'll see to that. We'll take the Viceroy's personal transport. It's not too far from here. Come on."

"I will come with you to Coruscant." Queen Votorina replied, and they began crawling down the shaft in the direction Master Windu directed.

It was difficult for Andierre to crawl in her fancy outfit; Padmé found herself helping her along. She could feel the girl trembling. She wasn't the only one; one of the others, Yané probably, had started quietly weeping, but she felt something stir around Andierre, she wasn't sure what. So she asked, "What's wrong?"

"I failed," replied the other girl simply.

"You did not. You defended your Queen, and we'll get you all to safety."

"He knew I wasn't her. You knew who she was."

"He's been fighting Naboo long enough to expect someone would be posing as the Queen. And _he_ didn't know which one she was either."

"We lost Saché. We couldn't even rescue her body."

That feeling of failure was one Padmé knew and understood. "You cannot dwell on what you can't change, Sabé Andierre."

"You even knew my name," she sighed.

Suddenly Padmé wondered if she'd be switched out, the same way the supposed Force-sensitive handmaiden had been. "Does that hurt you? Practically, I mean?"

"Not really. That we expect, in the end." But it clearly didn't make her feel much better.

They squeezed their way around a corner just as Padmé finally understood what the Force was whispering to her. She took Sabé Andierre's hand, and said, "Focus not on what has happened, but what you must do, and how you must prepare yourself. I foresee a future for you much like this one, but on a wider scale. In the end you may be the one forgotten, but you will do good for more people than you, or they, will know."

Sensing she had at last provided comfort, she left her to join her Master. "How much further is it?"

"Now you finally come up here," he replied, displeased, it seemed, by her delaying for the sake of compassion. Well, he'd been afraid of her agreeing with him too much in earlier years, and if the reasons for his fear was her weakness, the fact still remained she wasn't supposed to be a clone of him anyway.

And here it was best she cut through his arrogance before it got too strong again. "If I hadn't spoken to the Queen that way, she might not have agreed to come with us. You should not underestimate the attitude of the Naboo in this matter, and I say that as someone who was born here."

"I would have persuaded her in time. And you know I wish you were not so attached to this planet."

"It's not as bad as you think it is. It is a trouble, I admit that, but I have been meditating on the matter since we started our journey here, and I can handle it." She sensed his releasing his irritation, and realized they were quite close to their destination. She allowed herself one more comment: "And don't be so sure you could have persuaded the Queen after we got on board before she would have launched herself back towards Naboo in one of the escape pods. I tell you, those born on Naboo do not abandon it easily." _Even I didn't._

Then she carefully cleared her mind of all interfering thought, as Mace sliced open another grating, and they stared up at the small army of battle droids guarding the Viceroy's ship. "There a few more coming in," he whispered, "but they're probably using most of their guard in the larger bays."

Queen Votorina had come up behind them and was craning herself over their shoulders. "Still looks like a number of them."

"We'll take them while the five of you run to the ship."

"I-" the Queen started.

"Naboo depends on you getting safely to Coruscant," Padmé reminded her. No disapproval from her Master this time, thankfully.

"Very well." Then Padmé was opening herself up to the Force, feeling her Master do the same beside her, until their minds joined to it and to each other's, and they both sprang into the docking bay, lightsabers and limbs moving in counterpoint.

Clearing a path, they took opposite sides of it. Padmé was only vaguely aware of the fugitives they were protecting racing across the floor of the bay, knowing only the Force flying through her, propelling her blade through foe after foe, and the touch of her Master's mind, her holding to the Light there against the wild aggression that came perilously close to claiming her, and then his directing her back to the ship, snapping her out of it, as she and he turned and ran up the ramp.

She was breathless; her body felt oddly loose, her legs as if they might fail her. She wondered, once she had enough thought to, if Vaapad was something one ever got used to. She'd have to ask her Master. Later; they still had to get out of here.

She joined him at the ship's controls. He was punching in commands. "We're lifting up. This ship has to have weapons somewhere, see if you can find them."

Padmé scanned the controls, finally put her hand over the relevant one. "Good. It's no use firing at the ships themselves, but you can use them if they send anything after us, then we only need to get out of range. Strap yourself in; I'm going to make the jump to lightspeed as soon as possible."

Then it was only a matter of minutes, twisting and turning to avoid gunfire, Master Windu giving himself over to Force with an ease his apprentice didn't quite have yet while piloting, before they were in hyperspace and it was over.

Master Windu stood, and said, "I will see to our guests. You need to meditate now." Padmé knew better than to argue with him over that.


End file.
